Ariana Madix lost her appeal to overturn the invasion of privacy and revenge p0rn lawsuit filed against her in 2024 by her ‘Vanderpump Rules’ costar Rachel Leviss. A judge ruled this week that Rachel’s lawsuit— which she filed against both Ariana and their mutual ex Tom Sandoval— can proceed.
According to Rolling Stone, a California appellate court sided with Rachel on Wednesday by refusing to overturn a lower court’s July 2024 ruling that found the ‘Love Island USA’ host’s alleged actions neither protected speech, nor a matter of public interest.
As The Ashley previously reported, Rachel filed a lawsuit against Ariana in February 2024 for claims of Revenge P0rn; she’s also suing Sandoval for Eavesdropping and both Ariana and Sandoval for Invasion of Privacy and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.
Rachel’s lawsuit stems from alleged NSFW FaceTime calls involving Rachel and Sandoval that were allegedly screen-recorded by Sandoval without Rachel’s consent. The sexy time videos were discovered on Sandoval’s phone by Ariana in March 2023. Rachel alleges in her lawsuit that Ariana improperly obtained and then shared the NSFW videos after she found them on her then-boyfriend Sandoval’s phone.
Ariana admits to accessing Sandoval’s phone without his knowledge or permission and recording the NSFW FaceTime videos of Rachel using her own phone while inside of a women’s bathroom stall. However, she claims she only sent “snippets” of the video directly to Rachel upon discovering the content. Ariana also maintains that she sent the content to Rachel because she was distraught and wanted to confront Rachel over her affair with Sandoval.
Ariana insists that she didn’t “share, display, or show the videos to anyone else.”
In July 2024, the lower court ruled that Ariana’s alleged actions were unlawful, thus falling outside of the protections of California’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law, which is intended to quickly dismiss meritless lawsuits targeting free speech.
While Rachel’s lawsuit has been on hold for two years as Ariana’s appeal was pending, a status hearing has now been set for August 11.
“We are pleased but not surprised that the court of appeal affirmed Judge Crowley’s well-reasoned decision to dismiss Ariana Madix’s anti-SLAPP motion,” Rachel’s lawyer Bryan J. Freedman said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Hopefully, the defendants will now stop playing delay games and allow themselves to be judged based upon their admittedly egregious conduct.”
Sandoval previously filed separate challenges to Rachel’s lawsuit as well, though his efforts were also unsuccessful.
Additionally, Sandoval alleged on an episode of his Everybody Loves Tom podcast in October 2024 that Rachel offered to drop the lawsuit against him if he agreed to blame the discovery of their Scandoval affair on NBC Universal.
Sandoval also alleged at the time that Rachel’s lawsuit was financially motivated and denied that Rachel was “manipulated” by him, as she has claimed. Rachel’s attorney later denied Sandoval’s claims.
(Photos: Bravo; Instagram)
2 Responses
I thought it was weird her attorneys tried arguing it should be tossed because it was “free speech”. If she had texted Rachel the contents of the video, that would’ve been “free speech’ and not violated any laws. But sending the video itself is NOT protected. I’m assuming her attorneys know the difference, but instead pushed this ridiculous argument, which wastes everyone’s time and her money.
I can understand being in the moment and emotions running wild, not even thinking of the consequences of recording and sending the video back to Rachel. Doesn’t mean it’s okay in the eyes of the law. She’d be better off to settle because she’s going to lose her case. (She should admit fault because she did exactly what they’re saying she did: distributing p0rn without consent; but she won’t.) She can settle without admitting fault, which would probably save her money in attorneys’ fees. She’ll still have to pay the settlement, but not a year’s worth of fees AND a settlement.
The smartest person in the room doesn’t want to admit they did a stupid thing and face consequences.
She shared the video with Katie and Kristen and who knows who else. Kristen even said she saw the video after this happened then soon after said she misspoke, once under oath she will have to admit that her and Katie both saw the video. You know what they say “You lose them how you got them” and how funny is this, it took Ariana ONE week to get over Tom. You can’t convince me she wasn’t already seeing the guy she is with now. She even admitted her and Tom hadn’t had sex in over 5 months and rarely did things together. IMO, they are all scumbags.